721 replies to this topic

[Sereglach]

Helmer, on 03 July 2013 - 09:00 PM, said:

In friends and family all the numbers were exact to TT values. It honestly, was not fun. It did have a certain hardcore appeal, but it ended up being a "Take a huge engine, put in a bunch of med or small lasers" fight. It was easy to use terrain to get in close and maul people.

However, this was with Forest Colony, a very brawler friendly map. It would be a different story in say Alpine.

With the advent of the Public Test Server perhaps PGI could be convinced one day to move all values back to strict TT . It would be fun, and interesting to see......



Cheers.

The big issue with what you're describing is that you're using arbitrary TT values. Like what DarkJaguar places in his original post, you can't take TT damage values that are based off of a 10 second/round system and then add whatever recycle values you wish to the weapons. That just throws everything into a complete Charlie Foxtrot of game balance. What this post suggests is to redo the values of weapon systems in the game to reflect the DPS and HPS values consistently with tabletop.

If you wanted to redo autocannons to all be like continuous fire weapons you could certaintly redo the ammo/ton values to compensate for this. They already did it for machine guns. You could easily revert all autocannons to have 10x the ammo/ton and reflect the damage accordingly, with AC2's doing .2 damage a round with one shot a second and AC20's doing 2 damage a round at one shot a second. This keeps the damage in line with TT and balances the game mechanics. This same concept can be carried over into every weapon system in the game. The pace of combat stays the same (and in some ways even increases), while the numbers stay lower and consistent.

Using the system DarkJaguar proposes you aren't applying arbitrary values to weapon systems that throws off the whole balance of the game. Even other MechWarrior games that used their own arbitrary values for weapon fire rates ran into the same problems. One of the fundamental things that needs to be pulled from TT that has never been done before is a proper usage of the metric of TIME. Time controls your fire rates, time controls your DPS, time controls your HPS, time controls your rates of movement (the only reason this was successfully carried over is because engine ratings have a calculation for KPH, which standardizes movement speeds), and time controls your rates of cooling. Time dictates EVERYTHING that has to do with successfully balancing a game like MWO. It is also a highly overlooked rule mentioned in the base TT books that a round of combat in Battletech lasts 10 seconds . . . just like a round of combat in D&D lasts 6 seconds. Most people overlook that little rule that is mentioned in those rulebooks and many other TT rulebooks . . . mainly because it is normally only mentioned once, on one little line in a multi-hundred page book. However, time is extremely important. Time is the most important factor of all.

[Victor Morson]

Helmer, on 03 July 2013 - 09:00 PM, said:

In friends and family all the numbers were exact to TT values. It honestly, was not fun. It did have a certain hardcore appeal, but it ended up being a "Take a huge engine, put in a bunch of med or small lasers" fight. It was easy to use terrain to get in close and maul people.

I was writing a long response of the importance of maintaining the spirit of a thing and an actual direct conversion, and honestly, I think I was going off on a total tangent. Then I figured out the best possible way to explain our current community:

Batman.

There are literally tons of people who will fight, bitterly, about the differences between the 60s Batman, Burton Batman and Nolan Batman... and then there are the comic fans who hate the changes to the character in all of the versions, without taking into consideration what works on the printed page, does not work in a film.

And what works in one film, including tone, may not work in another. Yet they all belong to the same franchise and are easily recognizable as being such - even with the wildly different tone, in some cases. Yet, again, the spirit of the thing is a big deal: With completely different takes, they are all still recognizable as the same source material and each had to do their own thing with it.

But like I said, there will always be people who insist that each work is flawed because it didn't follow their own personal favorite of the franchise or slave over decades of universe history in the source material... just like MechWarrior.

That said, again, the spirit of the thing must remain intact. If you change too much, or don't adhere to the concepts behind the source material, you also hit problems. Again, like MechWarrior.

So yes, I am directly comparing PGI's job of converting a nearly 30 year old table top wargame with countless additions and source material to exactly what a movie production must do to convert a long running comic into a successful film. There's a lot of similarities and there will always be a very fine line to walk and you will never be able to please them all.

Thus I am totally OK with changes - if they make this a better 'mech sim game in the end. I am looking at MechWarrior as an adaption, because it is one, and taking it on it's own merits while not forgetting what made the original material great, or past versions work. I think that is the only way to look at it fairly, to be honest.

PS: All of my complaints are due to problems with this game specifically. I reference how past material might have handled things better, or done the same mistakes (Living Legends and MW4:HC both tried direct TT values at first you are right, it sucked).. but in the end, I judge things if they work in this game, and this game alone.

Ultimately, expecting this game to adhere to TT rules is just as futile as expecting a long running comic series to get a shot-by-shot recreation into film. It won't happen and it wouldn't work if it did.*

* Sin City doesn't count, given it was a series of short stories in the first place.

Edited by Victor Morson, 04 July 2013 - 01:54 AM.

[The Cheese]

Burton batman was superior, if for nothing else than the camp factor.

[Victor Morson]

The Cheese, on 04 July 2013 - 01:54 AM, said:

Burton batman was superior, if for nothing else than the camp factor.

Not to derail the analogy any, but you think the Burton Batman was campier than the 60s West Batman?



There are people out there who will always think of this version first; and there will always be MW fans who always hold everything up to, say, 2. There's both good and bad in that.

Edited by Victor Morson, 04 July 2013 - 01:59 AM.

[The Cheese]

Victor Morson, on 04 July 2013 - 01:57 AM, said:

Not to derail the analogy any, but you think the Burton Batman was campier than the 60s West Batman?



There are people out there who will always think of this version first; and there will always be MW fans who always hold everything up to, say, 2. There's both good and bad in that.

I feel that this discussion isn't going to go any further because, as a couple of people have touched on, and you elaborated on, there will never be an agreement on which is the best way to go. Ultimately, the devs are going to go the way that they feel is best for the game, and no amount of forum warrioring is going to change that. Deep down, I think we all know this, but it makes us feel better to whinge a little. Or a lot.

Also:

Unintentional camp is best camp. Have some rubber muscles.

[Aerik Lornes]

Helmer, on 03 July 2013 - 09:00 PM, said:

In friends and family all the numbers were exact to TT values. It honestly, was not fun. It did have a certain hardcore appeal, but it ended up being a "Take a huge engine, put in a bunch of med or small lasers" fight. It was easy to use terrain to get in close and maul people.

Are you saying that in friends and family they fired once per 10 seconds at their tabletop ranges? That heat sinks worked at .1 heat per second per heat sink? That the heat cap was 30 with chances of shutdown starting at 14?

Or are you, like others, confusing ramped up fire rates, convergence, and a high heat cap as somehow related to tabletop? The biggest problem with your statements is that you can look at the functionality of early closed beta, insert actual tabletop settings and see that, even with 100% accuracy, it's impossible to get the results you claim.

[Helmer]

Sereglach, on 04 July 2013 - 01:22 AM, said:

The big issue with what you're describing is that you're using arbitrary TT values. Like what DarkJaguar places in his original post, you can't take TT damage values that are based off of a 10 second/round system and then add whatever recycle values you wish to the weapons. [snipped for room]

This is correct. As an exercise in fun it's intersting to debate if it would work, be fun, appeal to enough people to be an economicaly viable game, etc etc.
Once you stray from any of the table top values, you are then on a slippery slope of how far you deviate. PGI started with TT values (Which was good on them) and then started deviating from there. The question for many is how far of a deviation is acceptable to their own sense of what is Battletech/Mechwarrior is and what is not.

Like I stated earlier, it would be nice if PGI was able to play around on their Public Testing server and try strict TT settings, then TT settings slightly modified for time variations, etc etc. It's also fun to bandy about possibilities, but , at this point, if anyone is arguing that PGI should switch to this (Not saying anyone is) ....well.... it's a bit too far in the process to make a major overhaul.

Victor Morson, on 04 July 2013 - 01:50 AM, said:

I was writing a long response of the importance of maintaining the spirit of a thing and an actual direct conversion, and honestly, I think I was going off on a total tangent. Then I figured out the best possible way to explain our current community:

Batman.
[snipped for room]

Excellent post. One I whole heartedly agree with and try to express myself, albeit not so eloquently .

Aerik Lornes, on 04 July 2013 - 05:24 AM, said:

Are you saying that in friends and family they fired once per 10 seconds at their tabletop ranges? That heat sinks worked at .1 heat per second per heat sink? That the heat cap was 30 with chances of shutdown starting at 14?

Or are you, like others, confusing ramped up fire rates, convergence, and a high heat cap as somehow related to tabletop? The biggest problem with your statements is that you can look at the functionality of early closed beta, insert actual tabletop settings and see that, even with 100% accuracy, it's impossible to get the results you claim.

Yep. Weapon damage values, ranges, heat sink rates, no 'mechlab, few variants, standard armor, etc etc.
This was Friends and Family, Not closed beta.

Personally, I love sims. I used to love to play IL2:Sturmovik , Rise of Flight, Arma2, etc etc The more realistic and brutal the better. If someone came up with a true, hardcore simulator lovers sim for Mechwarrior, I'd be the first in line.
With the values in F+F is became too much of a "Wait and don't peek your head out because usually the first one to fire wins" type gameplay. Or, conversely, try and quickly rush around using terrain and if you spot them first, they died. It was way too binary.

Now, to play devils advocate, this was 1) Only on Forest Colony and 2) some weapons were still not in (Gauss, Pulse lasers) and 3) The TT heat mechanic was not in.

Adding all those in, could very well make a difference. But a viable game accessible to millions? I'm not convinced. I'd sure give it a try tho.


Cheers.

Edited by Helmer, 04 July 2013 - 06:01 AM.
Posting from work. AutoSpell check isnt working?! Why hath thou forsaken me?!?!?!

[stjobe]

Helmer, on 04 July 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

Yep. Weapon damage values, ranges, heat sink rates, no 'mechlab, few variants, standard armor, etc etc.

But not any randomization of hit locations, convergence, or cone of fire, nor any forced chain-fire. If you fired all your weapons at once they still hit the same pixel. That is most emphatically NOT TT, and that's why they had to double armour. And that's where it all started to go wrong.

Perfect aim alphas cannot be made to work with TT values. You can make it work by fixing either the perfect aim, the alpha mechanic, or the TT values. PGI chose to just adjust the TT armour values, and have been struggling to find some semblance of balance by juggling other TT values ever since. So far, they haven't been wildly successful, and they haven't once tried adjusting the perfect aim or the alpha mechanic.

Remember that the TT turn was an abstraction of what played out over 10 seconds; there's no reason an alpha would mean all weapons firing in the same instant - and if they don't, perfect aim doesn't matter as much.

Edited by stjobe, 04 July 2013 - 06:39 AM.

[Karazyr]

gahhh! every time i see someone say just use the TT rules i want to punch someone, TT=/= real time, do you want a mech to take 2 mins to kill?

the convergence idea however i like, have a max power limit on engines and the like.

[Fate 6]

I want my weapons to go where I shoot. We just need something similar to the proposed PPC change where the initial hit does like 5 damage and then the trail of energy behind it does 1-1-1-1-1


That said, I think PGI won't fix balance because every time they could fix a problem by ACTUALLY FIXING THE PROBLEM they instead add a new mechanic that just adds complexity to the system (see: ECM, walking on hills, proposed boating heat penalties)

[stjobe]

Derrpy, on 04 July 2013 - 10:13 AM, said:

do you want a mech to take 2 mins to kill?

Sure, why not? It's a damn sight better than getting one-shotted, and also very much true to just about every depiction of 'mech battles in the BattleTech universe - lumbering steel behemoths slugging it out, slowly chipping away at each other, with pilots nearly suffocating in the baking-oven heat of their cockpits, their machine falling apart around them but heroically getting that epic final shot off that ensures their victory - and afterwards limping home to be repaired, often times with parts from the very 'mech they just defeated.

That's BattleTech. Getting one-shotted by a multi-PPC+Gauss sniper is not.

[jeffsw6]

Helmer, on 04 July 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

Like I stated earlier, it would be nice if PGI was able to play around on their Public Testing server and try strict TT settings

It would be nice if LRMaggedon, SRM uselessness, pointless LPL nerf, pebble making a mech come to a dead stop, or the countless other PGI Failures were tested on such a Public Testing server, or play-tested at all, so players can go, "wtf, this is stupid" before it's chasing players away -- to say nothing of the ridiculous PPC/Gauss meta.

Many things could be done if there was a public testing server. Put TT values on it all you want. It cannot possibly be worse than the current game, but if it is, players will still have the choice not to play on the test server!

Oh, yeah, but then PGI might have to offer up proof when they make stupid statements like "a 6 MG Spider would core the back of an Atlas in SECONDS."

[Ansel]

Derrpy, on 04 July 2013 - 10:13 AM, said:

gahhh! every time i see someone say just use the TT rules i want to punch someone, TT=/= real time, do you want a mech to take 2 mins to kill?

the convergence idea however i like, have a max power limit on engines and the like.

Its possible to completley convert a turnbased system to a realtime system without loseing anything mathmaticly revelent to the diceroll percentages used.

So lets look at what the TT system is and does.

If you wanted to change the system to realtime at a 1:1 translation with pinpoint aim (like what we have now) it's completley doable without changing how the "dicerolling" effect worked, mind it's not intuitative but it can be done.

So we remove the Hit% chance that was based on movement and a D6.

Now we look at the Paperdoll, that also required a D6 roll to determine "where" damage was delt, this effect and the chance to hit Arm/Leg sections was greater than LeftTorso/RightTorso and that was still greater than CenterTorso section which was greater than the Head seciton, this meant that the majority of damage would be delt in this manner legs/arms>LT/RT>CT>H by the diceroll %.

By useing a pinpoint system we have also removed that roll but will need to translate this part of the "dicerolling" system and the Hit chance.

Now what the translation at 1:1 should look like for the D6 to "Hit": shoot a Medium Laser at the Left Leg of a Mech and deal 5*hit% chance of damage based on average hit chance at short/medium/long ranges. Put simply you deal decreasing damage as you reach maximum range.

Now we look at the D6 to determine where Damage was delt, the 1:1 translation for the Paperdoll D6 should look like: Medium Laser dealt 5*hit% damage to Left Leg, Now all other armor sections receive % increased damage taken based on the ammount of damage delt to every other section.

That is how a "true" translation would look as the "diceroll" to Hit is removed and a reduction to damage is put in place and the chance to hit sections would be an inverse reaction meaning that as you deal damage to one section the damage other sections of the mech take "more" damage.

All turnbased systems are a breakdown of realtime into sections, your statement is erroneous because those sections can be "joined" to make a realtime system in every case, it just always insn't intuitative.

[Garth Erlam]

Victor Morson, on 04 July 2013 - 01:50 AM, said:

I was writing a long response of the importance of maintaining the spirit of a thing and an actual direct conversion, and honestly, I think I was going off on a total tangent. Then I figured out the best possible way to explain our current community: Batman. There are literally tons of people who will fight, bitterly, about the differences between the 60s Batman, Burton Batman and Nolan Batman... and then there are the comic fans who hate the changes to the character in all of the versions, without taking into consideration what works on the printed page, does not work in a film. And what works in one film, including tone, may not work in another. Yet they all belong to the same franchise and are easily recognizable as being such - even with the wildly different tone, in some cases. Yet, again, the spirit of the thing is a big deal: With completely different takes, they are all still recognizable as the same source material and each had to do their own thing with it. But like I said, there will always be people who insist that each work is flawed because it didn't follow their own personal favorite of the franchise or slave over decades of universe history in the source material... just like MechWarrior. That said, again, the spirit of the thing must remain intact. If you change too much, or don't adhere to the concepts behind the source material, you also hit problems. Again, like MechWarrior. So yes, I am directly comparing PGI's job of converting a nearly 30 year old table top wargame with countless additions and source material to exactly what a movie production must do to convert a long running comic into a successful film. There's a lot of similarities and there will always be a very fine line to walk and you will never be able to please them all. Thus I am totally OK with changes - if they make this a better 'mech sim game in the end. I am looking at MechWarrior as an adaption, because it is one, and taking it on it's own merits while not forgetting what made the original material great, or past versions work. I think that is the only way to look at it fairly, to be honest. PS: All of my complaints are due to problems with this game specifically. I reference how past material might have handled things better, or done the same mistakes (Living Legends and MW4:HC both tried direct TT values at first you are right, it sucked).. but in the end, I judge things if they work in this game, and this game alone. Ultimately, expecting this game to adhere to TT rules is just as futile as expecting a long running comic series to get a shot-by-shot recreation into film. It won't happen and it wouldn't work if it did.* * Sin City doesn't count, given it was a series of short stories in the first place.

This is a great post here, thanks, I think it sums up the TT/MW4/MWLL/etc groups all vying for what is 'actual MechWarrior.'

[Hawks]

I never liked Batman, I could never understand what made people get so excited about watching an over-privileged **** in a gimp suit beating up clowns.

[Rebas Kradd]

Fate 6, on 04 July 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

That said, I think PGI won't fix balance because every time they could fix a problem by ACTUALLY FIXING THE PROBLEM they instead add a new mechanic that just adds complexity to the system (see: ECM, walking on hills, proposed boating heat penalties)

ECM wasn't a fix for anything. It was a blanket feature that introduced the info-warfare theme they wanted. The boating heat penalties are something we talked them out of. Walking on hills...ehh, not sure why you wouldn't want that.

[peerless]

Garth Erlam, on 05 July 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:

This is a great post here, thanks, I think it sums up the TT/MW4/MWLL/etc groups all vying for what is 'actual MechWarrior.'

Holy mechajesus, your thread got a read and reply. I guess I'll give up on being polite from now on haha.

It is really not about how TT values are and more about trying to get it to feel like the weapon it's meant to emulate.

Lets approach this BATMAN style. What is a medium laser?
MW2 and MW3 did it similar to mwo. Mid range recycle times 5 damage. Not balanced for multiplayer at all but fun for single player. MWO compensates with double armor. These all have a dps around 1.25. Give or take some for a given games recycle rate.

The BT board game, MW4, MWLL and the mechcommanders have DPS values between .4 and .5. Less than half the dps of the single player games and mwo. To be fair, with double armor the equivalent would be 0.8-1.0 meaning that the ML is only 20%-35% too much.

It seems weird that mwo falls into the group with the single player games rather than with the mechwarriors that are known for trying to be multiplayer games. It's even worse for heat(3 heat sinks instead of 10+)and the side effect is that the game with the most canon variants is going to be the one that makes most of them awful . And these kinds of threads are going to be around for a long time to come.

I do love a lot about mwo so hats off for the good effort. Super especially the art team. But the balance and weapon feel leaves something to be desired and I'm afraid the lack of a baseline is going to hurt how the dials get turned to adjust the game.

Edited by peerless, 06 July 2013 - 02:31 AM.

[SJ SCP Wolf]

Achieve balance? Never going to happen. Maybe get 'close', possibly. That is until clan tech.

[Pht]

stjobe, on 03 July 2013 - 01:21 PM, said:

I think this is too important to be put as an aside in parenthesis.

The construction rules are way more lenient than the customization rules - the customization rules have limits on just what you can change, it has a built-in chance of a swapped-out weapon having glitches, it has sky-high costs in both C-Bills and time for doing most anything, and so on and so forth. A MechLab founded on the customization rules instead of the construction rules would be very interesting to see.

Ultimately you have to add some more restrictions for the video game format than even the customization rules add, in order to promote good gameplay.

Even under the customization rules, you can change virtually any aspect of your 'mech. The customization rules just make it a lot harder to do so. They'd fit a persistent universe MMORPG quite well. Not so well to an MMOG.

[Pht]

Aym, on 03 July 2013 - 06:07 PM, said:

Replay TT BT with perfect pilot skills. Go on, play a game, you'll QUICKLY see that even with TT values the game plays much like it does here, high pinpoint alpha's at long range, ducking into cover, mechs being destroyed by focused fire...

I have. Quite often. To test the ultimate ceiling of custom 'mech builds from solaris skunk werks in megamek.

There are NO consistent high pinpoint alphas. Even with the most tweaked out obcenely min-maxed munchkin builds it is impossible to replicate the pin-point effect, and for a simple reason: even firing vs an immobile target using all pulse lasers at medium range and using an advanced targeting computer, you STILL roll on a hit-location table that spreads your damage.

That table for this extreme situation just happens to spread the damage less than the usual hit location table.

ALL shots in the TT use a hit-location table that spreads the damage around, and they do so in order to simulate the 'mechs ability to actually get it's weapons aligned and the 'mechs ability to calculate where to align the weapons in order to concentrate under the reticule.

Quote

The forums don't need to prove you wrong if you can't prove yourself right.

Don't think I've ever seen this sort of cop-out in these discussions before.

I guess the emperor's nudity tends to make his followers pull anything to keep others from noticing their naked emperor.

Simply chanting "DICE! TURN BASED!" and attempting to shovel the burden back on anyone who dares ask for a justification for the position held doesn't cut it.

As for "can't prove yourself right" - I have already put forth the argument. It's in my left-most sig link... and in other places on these forums as well.